


do your worst in my best dress

by recycledstars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Ejaculate, F/M, Formalwear, Porn with Feelings, Season/Series 03, and, disgusting in every possible way, post-ep, to sum it up basically in two of ao3s tags:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:48:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2691818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recycledstars/pseuds/recycledstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"I’ve been worried all night that you were going to have your own Janet Jackson at the Superbowl moment,” he says, tugging ever so gently at the front of her dress and it gives way just as easily as he suspected it might.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	do your worst in my best dress

**Author's Note:**

> Brought to you by [this](http://recycledstars.tumblr.com/post/103453666083) and also [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG89dp9Z_gM), because the working title was _sucking on my titties like you wanted me_. (Which is crass, but all-too-appropriate.)
> 
> The phrase _come on my tits_ is used. So. I am in no way fucking around about the 'explicit' rating on this.

She won’t let him touch her before, warns him quite sternly by glaring with her mouth full of hairpins. “This isn’t one of those times where you can sweet talk me into letting you _ruin_ all my hard work and we can miss the party.”

“I’m just _looking_.”

“I know.” She turns, looking at him over her shoulder while she fastens an earring. “Like what you see?”

“Definitely interested in seeing more.”

He reaches out to search the seam at her back for the zipper (important to know the lay of the land) while she gives herself one last critical appraisal in the mirror. Her hand is lightning fast in circling his wrist, nails digging in hard.

“You look with your _eyes_ not your hands,” she says primly, side stepping him with a wide berth.

He gives her a woeful look as she hikes her skirt up to adjust the strap of one of her shoes so she kisses his cheek in the doorway, marking him with her lipstick.

“Oh, so you’re allowed to –”

“Shh.” Her fingers work at removing the stain. “Well, now everyone’ll know you’re mine.”

“I thought you finished sewing all the labels into my clothing.”

“Nobody had better be looking inside your clothing except me.”

“You’re the only one who’ll have me,” he promises.

She links her arms behind his neck. “I’m _sure_ that’s not true.”

“It is, once they get to know me.” He locates the zipper at the curve of her waist, right side, takes notes with his fingers and rests his forehead against hers.

“Mmm. Well I can’t fault them there.” She bumps her nose against his. “You can’t kiss me.”

“I resent this event more and more by the second.”

“Come on,” she says as she disentangles herself. “We’ll be late to meet our new overlord.”

“This evening is definitely going to get worse before it gets better.”

“Just remember, no matter how bad it gets I can promise you that it will end much, _much_ better.”

“Are you saying that after it’s over I can look with my hands?”

“I’m saying that after it’s over you can look any way you like.”

(She has a bit of a _thing_ for formalwear – _do your worst in my best dress_ – so, he doesn't doubt that that's true.)

 

 

 

 

He ends the evening with a lot more than he bargained for – hotel room, check, knockout fiancée in dress with bordering-on-indecent neckline, check, grand jury summons? Check and one of these things is _not_ like the others.

Mac is a visual thinker, not necessarily artistically, but she plots things out on paper, usually in color-coordinated ink. So he can tell she’s pre-occupied while they talk with Charlie and Rebecca and not just because she keeps playing with her engagement ring instead of arguing with him and isn’t nearly scathing enough about “crowd sourcing” the news.

(Actually at _that_ she just looks as defeated as Richard Westbrook and he thinks maybe the world really is coming to an end.)

He knows because she’s drawing in the arm of the sofa, dragging invisible ideas around, mouth set in a tight line.

So by the time she’s rifling through her bag for the hotel key, sometime after two in the morning, he’s dying to know what they all are, her ideas.

“You want to tell me what’s bothering you?” he asks. “You know, aside from the obvious …”

She rolls her eyes at him over her shoulder, pushing open the door. ( _The obvious_ really is more than enough at this point.)

“No,” she tells him, decisively. “I don’t want to talk at all.”

And as soon as the door closes behind them she has him up against the wall, mouth insistent, fists tight around his collar. Even though there’s an edge to it, to her, she relaxes into it, smirking a little.

“I just want someone to help me out of this dress,” she breathes, letting him walk her backward until their positions are reversed, her back is up against the wall opposite.

“Who’d you have in mind?”

“As it happens, you’re convenient.”

“It doesn’t look like you need all that much help.” He looks down and she follows his gaze. “Actually I’ve been worried all night that you were going to have your own Janet Jackson at the Superbowl moment,” he says, tugging ever so gently at the front of said dress and it gives way just as easily as he suspected it might.

(He’s also been wondering what she’s wearing _under_ the dress and the happy answer to _that_ mystery is not a thing.)

“Which, on the plus side –" He cups her breast in his palm, bends his head to say the rest into her skin, "– definitely would've distracted from our other scandal."

She exhales airily, tips her head back against the wall as he buries his face in the front of her dress.

"You always were a handful," he mumbles, makes two out of both her (perfect, perfect) breasts, kisses up her chest and the smooth white of her skin yields to a creeping blush under his mouth which is entirely gratifying. And her pulse performs an impressive crescendo until he can feel it throbbing at her neck under his tongue.

She doesn't say anything though, even when he tells her he’s changed his mind about the correspondents’ dinner. (“We’re going, every year, it’s my patriotic duty to get you into this kind of dress.”)

"You're quiet." Will pulls back to look at her and she takes the opportunity to start on his clothing, eyes focused on her work, undoing his buttons. “Mac.” He angles her chin up until she’s looking at him.

"You know I can't tell you any more about what's happening with the story now,” she murmurs, reaching up to take his hand from her face, dragging it back down to her chest.

Which is a nice try at distracting him, especially when she falls back against the wall and moans. But he asks the follow up anyway, groping her at the same time. (He can multitask.) "I know. But you saying that means something's happened with the story and you have to tell me what it is."

" _No_ ,” she stresses, staring at him intently, daring him to challenge her: "Contempt is one thing. You're not going to be the next Scooter Libby."

"He wasn't a journalist."

Her look is unrelenting and she's vicious when she says: "I don't give a _fuck_ Will. And somehow I don't think the Justice Department will either. I was listening to all your lawyer talk back there."

He looks surprised at her tone, holds his hands up to protest his innocence. "The reason you're quiet is that _something_ happened."

"The reason I'm quiet is that you're yammering on instead of making me loud." Her voice drops low and she makes quick work of his belt, pulls him against her by the waistband of his pants. “So do you want to shut up for a half hour or so? Because I got all dressed up for you.”

“For me?”

Her hands guide his, squeezing to exaggerate her cleavage, chest heaving as she gasps. It draws his attention from their hands and her … _fuck_ … to her crooked mouth, all mischief, which is saying _ever since I bought this dress I’ve been thinking about what you could do to me in it._

So yeah, he can shut up.

( _So_ much more than he bargained for.)

 

 

 

 

After, she lets him touch her, warns him quite sternly about the consequences of _stopping_ when he takes his hands off her momentarily to get out of his shoes.

She sits on the desk in front of the mirror she was so rapt in getting ready, pushes aside all her make-up and hairspray and … whatever else it is she uses to clutter flat surfaces in the name of beauty. A fair amount of it falls to the floor, but she ignores it in favor of pulling him closer by the open halves of his shirt.

“I thought you wanted to look with your hands,” she whispers into his mouth.

So he does, reads her body like braille, blazing trails his mouth follows, sucking at her breasts, leaving her skin wet so her nipples are slippery under his fingers as he kisses her sternum, and she’s pushing her breasts together so his face is thoroughly secreted in her cleavage and she’s kicking her feet into his shins, heels rough when she encourages him closer by digging them into his calves.

“Like what you see?” she echoes herself from earlier, when he straightens enough to take in another eyeful of _her_ , dress overflowing and hiked up.

“Definitely interested in seeing more.”

She angles her hips and their hands struggle with her underwear until she murmurs, “Now there’s nothing more to see.”

“Oh. I don’t know.” He sits in the chair under the desk, runs his hands over the inside of her thighs until all of her is standing on end, tense and – “Thought I was meant to be looking with my hands.”

He does and she's _wet_ and looking at him, shameless, and still quiet but at least she's in the moment.

(Not for the first time in the past six months he thinks _fuck everything else_ , their new motto, _give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change and just do unspeakable things to my fiancée instead_. It's been working out well so far.)

She trembles around his fingers, whole body shaking when he leans in to taste her but he _knows_ her (so well, and getting there has been their own private fucking miracle) and that's a more-than-usual reaction. He looks up and she smiles to reassure him.

“I’m fine,” she says, eyes bright and he thinks she might be lying but he takes her word for it. “Really –” she begins to add.

Then his mouth is on her and she doesn’t finish the thought, just says his name, once, hands in his hair, urging him harder.

He teases her though, eats at her slowly, fingers curling inside until she grabs at his wrist to hold him _there_ and he puts pressure on that spot, tongue still but resting against her until she groans, low and long in her throat. Then he flicks it against her clit and she jumps, grips the edge of the table and the intensity of the motion makes the furniture shake.

(That feels like an accomplishment.)

He busies his other hand spreading her to give his mouth better access, licks at her hard and moves his fingers inside her, draws her towards his mouth and ... then she's loud.

( _Jesus fucking Christ Will._ Which could be considered blasphemy but he'd make the argument that the man aforementioned did say _love one another_ and nothing says love like holding your breath for long enough to make her shake.)

She pushes him back with the heel of her shoe, dirty smile, voice trembling. “You’re going to have to stop that.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to ... do this together. Come up here.”

He stands and she slides off the counter, adjusting her dress until everything is back where it’s supposed to be which is definitely one giant leap backward for mankind.

“Now why would you do that?” he asks, against her ear, as she turns her back to him.

They make a pretty portrait of debauchery in the mirror, her hand in the front of his pants and her breasts spilling out over the top of her dress, her hair everywhere and her chest marred red and his hand hitching up her skirt.

“Because I thought you could try to _get_ me _out_ of it.” The smirk she gives him in the mirror suggests she has a less than orthodox method in mind. “Let’s call it a physics experiment.”

The she leans her elbows against the counter, pressing her breasts together and rocking forward to give him a full preview of how that’ll look.  
 _  
Fuck_.

“I’m genuinely curious,” she adds. “Aren’t you?”

“Well I am now.” He pushes her skirt up her back. “If you’re trying to distract me from our precarious legal situation it’s definitely working.”

“For me too.”

(Which isn't in question: she's slick when he rubs up against her, searching and _fucking_ hard but it's worth prolonging it when she grinds against him and _whines_ a little. And he could probably do that until she screamed but she's watching him in the mirror, still rocking, still so very nearly falling out of her dress and, focus on the task at hand.)

She whimpers when he enters her, and it pushes her forward against the edge of the desk and everything _shakes_ a little, but nothing shakes free (as it were.)

She rocks back into him, which helps the visual plenty. "You don't have to be gentle. It's not going to _work_ if you are."

Then she's all gasps and groans and he's pulling her by the hips and the hair, when she asks incredibly politely.

“Will,” she hums, too sweet to be innocent. “It’ll have to be harder, if you want this to work. But I think.” She gives him a lusty smile, all hooded eyes, pleased at her own double entendre. “We might be close.”

She pushes back with her hands, curls her back and gravity and the slapping of his body against hers forces her breasts free at which she murmurs at him in the mirror. "Success."

And that's a fucking understatement.

She says _oh God_ and his thrusts interrupt her vowels and (to reiterate) _fuck_ , because her breasts bounce and she’s _watching_ it with her teeth in her lip.

Then she’s trying to get a hand under her dress to touch herself, bracing herself with one hand and he’s vaguely concerned about her head hitting the mirror, over and over, seven years bad luck and all that, and her moans get increasingly frustrated until she says, quite succinctly, “Bed. Now.”

Which is not the kind of instruction he's inclined to argue with.

 

 

 

 

She clambers over him, drawing her dress up around her waist, still more than half-dressed even though he's not, now. (She allowed a brief pause to properly divest him of his pants but he's still wearing his shirt and her lipstick is probably all over it.)

He's hard in her hand and she's impatient, guiding him into her, rocking forward on her knees and her elbows are either side of his face so her chest is all over his mouth so he takes full advantage of _that_ , nips and sucks and licks and she curses.

( _Fuck_ , and he agrees with her there, even more when he has to hold her up when she works one hand between them to touch herself.)

The way she moves has her nipple sliding against his tongue and she starts off groaning, but her pitch gets higher as her hand works harder against her clit. Then she’s all out shrieking, begging him ( _oh Will, oh please, please, Will_ ) and he can feel her tense, thighs shaking so he sucks, hard, and she collapses, slams right down against him, breaking in waves, clenching and unclenching

(And he always thinks she’s the greatest woman in the entire world but especially when, after a full minute of still-but-shaking limbs, she laughs.)

Then she rolls them over, teeth in his bottom lip, murmuring, "I need to kiss you; I've missed it."

So she does, over and over.

 

 

 

 

He straightens up to kneel between her legs so he can look at her, sprawled out underneath him, a little bit mesmerised by how her chest moves at his thrusts.

“You really do have excellent –”

“You like them?” She takes them in her hands, gasping, playing with her nipples. It’s all very encouraging, aurally, and she jolts underneath him when he touches her at the juncture of their bodies but she bats his hand away, catches it, uses it to massage at her chest.

“I love everything about you.” He leans down to say it against her mouth and she opens it to him, tongue pliant, arching her back so her hips grind into him, soft skin and hard bone. And a little bit of friction.

“Then will you do me favour?” she asks, breathing hard.

“Anything.”

She whispers a crude reference to Jackson Pollock in his ear; the closest MacKenzie McHale will ever come to saying _come on my tits._ (An intellectual snob, even at her basest. But her meaning is explicit, in both senses of the word.)

She's already sliding down the mattress underneath him, brazen smile.

He doesn't think it at that moment, because at that moment he's doesn't really think at all but it's the fact that she looks so fond of him that cinches it. Devilish, yes, post-orgasmic - skin damp and hair all mussed - and completely satisfied, yes. But mostly just loving, and it's always there, underneath all the rest, they fight and they fuck and everything else in between but she loves him. Quietly and sweetly and _filthily_ because she holds her breasts together so he can fuck her cleavage and he really never thought dirtiest moment of his entire life would be with her but here they are.

(That's different, second time round, because they're not _perfect_ to each other anymore, so it's realer and messier, especially at present because ...)

She helps him finish himself off with two sets of hands complicating things until they interweave them, find a way to cooperate until he spills all over her in a hot wet rush while she just _smirks_ at him.

Their hands stay linked when he rolls off her tugging her with him.

“Well I feel _thoroughly_ inspected,” she tells him softly, hugging herself against his chest which makes a sticky mess. He wraps an arm around her shoulder, still a little dazed.

“Where did _you_ learn to talk like that?” he asks, when he can breathe again.

She shifts against him, amused. “I saw it in a movie once. Something I found in your search history.”

“That was from before we were together. And who taught you how about search history?”

She curls up, presses her lips to his shoulder and the gravity of the situation catches up to them. “Who do you think?”

“Venezuela. Gotta hand it to the kid, he doesn’t do things by halves.”

She hugs him tighter and that means _I’m worried_ and _I don’t know what’s going to happen_ and _I hate that everything is beyond my control_.

(Mac is talented at organising chaos, and she can roll with the punches better than most. But she likes to be prepared, poised, _in control of the situation_. And for the second time in a year she’s shit out of luck there. She hardly ever admits it but it wears at her.)

So he threads his fingers through her hair and tries to distract her. “I did a terrible job of helping you out of your dress.”

She hums. “You know it’s far more fun still in it.”

“I’ll take that to mean you’re volunteering to pick up the dry cleaning.”

When she stretches out her heel-clad toes bump his shin at which is ... whole thing, start to finish, is straight out of one of those movies she's talking about. (And _that_ is going to be a discussion they pick up another day.)

“Are you still wearing your shoes?”

“When exactly would I have taken them off?”

“What did Molly say? Ten days? Without doing that to you?”

“I prefer _with_ me but yes.” She sighs. “And we both know.” _It could be a lot longer than that_.

“Yeah.”

“What’re the chances,” she asks, “That we catch a fucking break?”

“Precedent says slim to none.” She shifts to fold her arms on his chest, rests her head on her hands and he reaches out to play with her bangs. “I have more bad news. You’re going to need to wash your hair.”

"Don't be vulgar."

"After that? I seem to recall it was at your behest Miss Manners."

She crawls up his chest and braces herself on her hands either side of him, giving him a full view of his good work.

"Heat of the moment," she murmurs, pressing small kisses to his mouth between words. "Something to remember me by in prison."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Not yet. You can go to jail; it’d serve you right, really, for being an _idiot_ without telling me first. But you had better be out by June because I _will_ be mad if you stand me up in my twenty thousand dollar wedding dress.”

“After tonight, I’m going to consider that an investment.”

“After tonight,” she echoes, idly. Then she sighs, moves off him to sit up and adjust her clothing before bending to undo her shoes. “Tomorrow morning, first thing, I have to take everybody home. I can’t tell you why. But I have to go too. Are you going to stay for Monday?”

“Not without you.”

“Oh, so _now_ you’re worried about spending your nights without me. Not _before_ you did something that may or may not be a federal crime.”

“It’s not. Yet. And I was worried about it before too.”

“I don’t want to work this via e-mail.”

“You don’t want a record.”

She nods. “I don’t think anybody should know any more than they have to for a while. And until we figure out exactly what we’re dealing with I’m taking everyone offline.”

“Most of the staff are under 30, they’ll go into withdrawals by lunch.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“You know why I did all this don't you?” He moves to sit on the edge of the bed next to her, reaches across her lap to cover her left hand with his, thumb rubbing against the band of her ring.

“To protect Neal. I know.” She entwines their fingers, following his eyes, and they both look at the diamond, the symbol of a promise and he's mostly used to the fact that she said yes now. Not that he'd have a fucking clue what to do without her, but sometimes he stills thinks on that, _the rest of their lives_.

“Because we’re a family." She smiles her approval, which he still craves even though she gives it unconditionally in all the ways that matter, and squeezes his hand. "I love you for that."

(He craves that too, love, after a lifetime of being fucked up by the lack of it and then there was _her_ and now she can never say it enough.)

“Not just Neal.”

“Everybody then.”

She drops his hand and begins untangling the pins from her hair, surprised at his next words even though he thinks they should be entirely self-evident:

“ _You_. So is there _any_ chance, that whatever's going on that you won't tell me about, you won't insist on playing brave journalist relentless in her pursuit of the truth?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Would I be stealing your limelight?”

He makes a face.

“Oh please. You’re the one playing the hero. I’m just doing my job.”

“You think that _is_ your job.”

“My job is to run the story," she argues, standing and crossing the room as she removes her earrings. "Unlike you I don’t need to be a hero, for people to like me or approve of me or know my name. I just need to do what’s _right_.”

“What you think is right.”

“ _Yes_. Thirty eight people died because of false stories. Leaving aside the issues I take with using the press to disseminate propaganda...” She pauses, walks back over to him. “You don’t need to be an ethicist Billy.”

“Heroes rarely think so.”

“Don’t … go on a diatribe about moral relativism. Saying you’re doing something _wrong_ to serve a greater good is almost always a convenient excuse. You know I _know_ that it's more complicated than you give me credit for. But all any of us can do is to do what we think is right, to act honourably.”

"Tell me a secret, how did you make it this far in life still a wide-eyed optimist?"

He needs her to be though, light of his fucking life, and that's something he loves _her_ for.

“I know there's a strong possibility that I might be setting myself up for disappointment. But after everything, I've decided I don't want to be any other way. Act. Honourably.”

“I’m trying to.”

She touches his cheek, rests her palm against the side of his face. “I know. I love you for that too.”

Then she bends to kiss him gently, falling out of her dress a little which he can't help but notice, attention drawn from her eyes to her neckline. He reaches up to fix it, cleaning her off a little with his hands in the process since she hasn't bothered at all.

"There's no need to act honourably _all_ the time," she murmurs.

"You're depraved, you know that?"

She rests her hands on his shoulders. “Shower with me. Washing my hair is really the _least_ you could do."

"Please explain to me exactly how this is my fault."

Her eyebrow and her mouth quirk. "Let me count the ways."

 

 

 

 

They talk while she straightens out the room, and she’s distracted by that task and is simultaneously mid-rant, so he can sit in bed and watch her uninterrupted.

"Crowd-sourcing the _news_ is the most _moronic_ thing I've ever heard and we covered elections to state legislatures last November so that's truly saying something. And if he comes into my -"

"Our."

" _My_ newsroom with any of that disruption _bullshit_ I'll ..."

"Beat him to death with your Peabodies?"

She thinks about it for a moment, shoes in her hands. " _Yes_."

"I feel much better now that you've threatened to kill the man who in all likelihood will be our new boss, and if he isn't then we won't have a boss because we won't have jobs at all. I really do. You didn't say anything about it before and I was concerned."

"I wanted to _hit_ him the entire time he was speaking," she assures him.

"Hey, look on the bright side, if the network's star anchor is thrown in the lock up for the foreseeable future maybe he won't be interested in buying us anymore."

She turns around to glare at him. "That is in _no way_ a bright side. Besides you know all press is good press. Don't worry about being in fourth place, I have a feeling that come Monday _everybody_ will be watching us."

"Another bright side. Silver linings, everywhere."

“Sometimes I think I liked you better before,” she says.

“Before what?”

“You put yourself in charge of morale.”

“You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“Back then I thought it was worst it could get.”

“You’re right, that’s hil _ar_ ious,” she deadpans, rescuing all her makeup from the floor.

“You were sitting on the table in my office with your legs – you have _great_ legs – and I was thinking that things could only get better, or at least of one particular way they could get better and it definitely involved you.”

“Just how often were you leering at me before you came to your senses?”

She finishes re-organising her things, puts them all in their respective cases, and he still finds it impressive, the way she packs so many things into such small spaces.

(Mac travels well, if not always lightly. And she repacks her bags every night too, leaves the room looking like they’re leaving in the morning even when they aren’t. He asked her about it once; she likes being able to change her plans at short notice.)

“The answer is either never, you know I respect you far too much for that, or always, because I’ve never wanted a woman like I want you. Whichever would please you most.”

“Hmm.” She frowns at him. “You know what pleases me most is _honest answers_.”

“Column A, Column B.” He gives her a knowing smile. “And I don’t think that’s what pleases you most.”

She picks her dress up off the floor, performs a cursory inspection of the damage and the integrity of the lace before draping it over the chair. “Maybe not but it makes the list.”

Then she picks up all his clothes too, and … _the rest of their lives_.

She catches him at it, staring at her. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at me.”

“I usually am.”

She puts her hands on her hips and waits for a real answer.

“Do you ever worry. No. Wonder, _think_. Do you ever think – ”

“Get there.”

“You look very … domestic,” he observes.

“I pick up after you all the time.” (Which is a little too pointed for someone who can’t even put her dishes in the sink in the morning.)

“I know. I notice it then too.”

“And you’re _worried_?” She turns out the light as she says it, which casts her in the shadow of the bedside lamp so he can’t see her expression, but her tone is mostly teasing. “What, that we’re _boring_?”

“I never said boring,” he counters quickly. “Definitely not saying boring.”

“I thought I was very interesting tonight.” She smiles as she crawls under the covers next to him, in that way she has: impish and probably meant to be about sex, but she just looks happy. It’s in her eyes and all over her face, and _no_ , it’s not that they’re boring, it’s that she looks like _this_ when she gets into bed with him at night. And she didn’t, six months ago.

(She looks like _this_ after doing _that_ and well, _fuck_. There is no possible thing he could have done to deserve her.)

“You are _always_ very interesting.”

She settles down against his shoulder, hair wet against his shirt. “Good.”

“It’s just surprising. That we – you and me – are doing a very fair impression of normalcy.”

“Hey,” she protests. “Leave me out of it, I’ve always been normal. Or a fair impression of it.”

“You know what I’m saying.”

“I do.” She tucks herself beneath his chin. “You’re saying we’ve got more issues than _The Atlantic_ and somehow we’ve managed to avoid letting any of them mess it up.”

“How do you think that happened?”

“Law of large numbers. Something was bound to go right eventually.” She pauses, then muses, “The thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy probably didn’t hurt either.”

He hugs her closer, traces the smooth curve of her shoulder. (She’s so hard and so soft and it still catches him unawares.)

She sighs. “I don’t like that we have to have secrets from each other.”

“Neither do I. But you said yourself that you would’ve done the same thing.”

“Only _I_ didn’t.”

“You said you weren’t mad.”

“I’m not.”

“If this is you not mad then it looks an awful lot like you when you are mad.”

“After eight years I would have thought you could tell the difference.”

“I can, that’s why I’m asking.”

“I know why you did it. And I’m proud of you for doing it.” She sits up to look at him. “I’m not mad. I just don’t like it. Any of it. And _yeah_ , I think you might not be as big a star as you thought, Icarus.”

“Give the Greek mythology a rest.”

“Fine.” She leans closer and pokes him in the shoulder. “ _Hotshot_.”

“You really think so?”

“You know _I_ do but –”

“I really like that you do.”

“I know.”

Her mouth is gentle and her hands at the side of his face are steady, steady _ing_. Sometimes everything stops for them. He kisses her back, enjoys that this is their new ellipsis.

So she keeps her promise, the evening does end much, _much_ better. But these days most nights do.

**Author's Note:**

> [hangs head in shame] If you'd like me to explain myself I did! A very long writing-about-writing blog post [here](https://littlebitsofmad.livejournal.com/1281.html).
> 
> Also eeeey oh, more or less not completely jossed by 3.04. In life it's about small victories.


End file.
